


I'm hoping you can save me

by jdphoenix



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 09:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4913917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This mountain can play tricks on you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm hoping you can save me

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to a prompt - one that I'm withholding for spoilery reasons - but I had two very different ideas for it, so both chapters can stand on their own or exist in the same universe, it's up to you. Or me, if I ever get around to writing a chapter three where things come together. ~~But I should probably work on the second drabble first.~~
> 
> Fic and chapter titles from Halsey's "Haunting."

Jess is lost. She knows she’s in the mines - because where the hell else could she be - but she doesn’t know which way to go or how to get out or _anything_. She wasn’t so horny earlier that she didn’t notice the map with DANGER stamped over every corner or all the stuff about miners trapped in cave-ins. They had people looking for them, at least, people who knew where they were.

Nobody knows where Jess is.

Mike came after her, but then she fell. She remembers that part, how scared shitless he looked, how he wouldn’t even touch her, so she probably looks as bad as she feels, and then something broke and she fell down down down and then nothing.

So she’s pretty far from the surface then.

She shuffles along, following the paths because she can’t climb. How easy was it to get over those rocks on the way to the cabin? And now she can’t even lift her feet more than a few inches without losing her balance and making herself feel dizzy.

Dizzy, she doesn’t need. Not on top of all the bleeding and the pain in every one of her joints and the headache that makes everything so _hard_. _Moving_ is hard. _Turning_ is hard. _Looking around_ is hard.

Mostly she keeps her eyes on the ground to make sure she doesn’t trip - she’s not sure she could get back up if she fell - but a sound draws her attention.

It’s not the first one she’s heard down here. There are strange noises she tells herself are rocks tripping down over each other and not things with sharp claws and milky eyes and bodies that look _way_ too human. But this noise isn’t that. It’s a voice and, as she draws closer to a fork in the path, she realizes it’s a familiar one.

“Help!” it calls over and over again. It’s definitely a girl. Could one of the others be down here? Oh God, did they get dragged through the woods like she was? Did they see-

“Mike! Please!”

She knows the voice now, recognizes it from those videos Josh is always shooting. It’s _her_.

It’s not possible, doesn’t make any sense at all, but nothing does today. She finds her feet moving in the direction of the voice that’s still calling out, more insistent now, like it knows she’s heard it. Maybe … maybe she’s _supposed_ to go down there. Maybe she’s just imagining that it sounds like her and it’s really Sam or Ashley or-

“Jess!”

She whirls and has to catch herself on the wall that forks the path. Mike is standing on the other side, the rifle from the cabin in his hands.

“Jess,” he says again, smiling like he can’t believe she’s here. “Thank God, I was so worried!”

“Mike.” Just seeing him is enough to sap what little strength she has. Her feet want to run into his arms, but her legs have lost the strength to move, so she just stares at him instead. He’s okay. He’s here.

The voice calls his name again and his expression turns dark. “We gotta get out of here before it decides to come _looking_ for its next meal instead of waiting around for it. Stick close to me, okay?”

She really, _really_ wants to just stay here, sit on the dirty floor and curl up in his arms, but she knows he’s right, so she nods and uses the wall to propel herself forward. She can’t move fast, but Mike isn’t exactly sprinting. He’s slow, cautious, and never goes farther than the light from her lantern.

“What is it?” she asks once the voice fades behind them.

“I don’t know.” He watches the dark corners up ahead of them. “But I’m thinking it wasn’t a bear that killed that deer.”

“Yeah.” She remembers the deep gashes, so big that Mike tore the deer’s head off without even trying. Her hand goes to her throat. That could’ve been her.

She hisses in a breath when her palm brushes the cut on her collarbone. Mike looks over his shoulder, sympathy warming his face. “I know it hurts-”

“I’m okay.” She’s _hurt_ , but she’s not _dead_. She can cry over this once it’s over.

“That’s my brave girl. Come on.” He takes a left without even stopping to consider. She hopes his memory’s good enough he remembers the way he came in.

“That thing sounded like-”

“Shh!” Mike holds a hand back, cutting her off. She reaches to catch it, fear making her cling to the safest thing she sees, but he grabs the lantern from her instead. “Behind that rock.”

There’s a tall rock a few feet back, jutting out from the wall. Anyone - or anything - passing by won’t see what’s behind it if they don’t turn to look. It’s as safe as she’ll find here. Operative word: _she_. There’s only room for one of them.

“Mike…”

“I’ll be okay, just stay put.”

The wall digs into her tender back and side, but that’s nothing to not being able to see Mike. She watches the shadows waver, willing her breath to keep slow and steady. It’s tough with the way her ribs ache. There’s always this half-second between breaths where she thinks it’d be easier to just _not_ breathe in again.

That’s probably not a good sign.

That falling rocks sound is echoing along the path, growing closer and louder every second. She looks at the light, still so close. There’s no way he’s hiding, so what the hell is he planning on doing?

A scream like metal tearing has her muscles tensing up. Something’s moving out there - a lot of somethings. What is Mike _thinking_?

The light sways and the lantern hits the floor with a clatter.

“Mike,” Jess breathes. Immediately her mouth snaps closed and she screws her eyes shut. Her horrified gasp is lost under the sound of another metallic sound, this one softer than a scream. There’s barely any light beyond her eyelids, less than there should be even with the lantern sputtering.

It’s found her.

That piss-yourself fear sweeps over her again. She remembers the utter terror of facing something so much more powerful than her, of watching it come closer and closer, looming over her like it was just looking for the right place to start tearing into her. She thought there was nothing worse than that while it was happening, but then the thing _chose_.

It wasn’t trying to kill her, just to hurt her, over and over and all she could do was call for Mike to save her because she couldn’t save herself.

She knows why it did it, and maybe that’s what has her opening her eyes when she feels warm breath stinging the cuts she’d gone numb to. White eyes, so wide they’re practically jumping out of their sockets, are inches from hers. Its jaw is slack, giving her a great view of those long, sharp teeth. There’s no air moving in her lungs, keeping the whimper she feels from clawing its way up her throat.

The thing moves away suddenly, its head turning like it can hear something back the way they came, and her breath leaves her in a sigh when she sees its pale arm in the firelight. It doesn’t hear, it’s already moving off, running with another of its friends down the passageway.

Jess lets the rock take her weight while she waits for her heart to slow down enough that she can tell if they’re really gone.

“Mike?” she whispers when she doesn’t hear anything anymore. The fire’s nearly out now and only fear of being down here in the dark is strong enough to have her moving to grab it. She has to pick it up on her way into the other wall of the cave, she’s not strong enough to stop or to bend without momentum helping her out.

She hits the wall hard and it makes her voice sharper than she means it to be when she demands, “Mike!” 

“Hey.” He appears out of the shadows, moving in and out of view while the lantern sways. More likely it’s her arm doing the swaying, so she drops it to her side. “You okay?” He’s still got his hands lifted like he’s worried she’s gonna attack him - or like he’s trying to calm her down. She doesn’t know which makes her feel better.

“ _Me?_ _I_ was hidden! _You_ were the one just standing in the open!”

“It’s fine,” he says. “I tried to fight the first one, but I guess they can’t see you if you don’t move, so I just stayed where it threw me and they left.” His eyes snap to all the places her skin is showing through the ratty old clothes. “Did the one hurt you?”

The terror washes over her again, but she manages a quiet, “No.”

Mike seems satisfied. “Good. Let’s get moving then, don’t wanna spend anymore time down here than we have to, right?”

Leaning against the wall feels - okay, it doesn’t feel _good_ because nothing feels good right now, but it at least doesn’t hurt as much as _moving_. Still, she’d really rather not die down here, so she puts one foot in front of the other and follows Mike’s lead.

She can’t stop thinking about that close call and about the one that brought her here. Horrific, inhuman faces keep hovering at the edges of her mind and it’s only stiff muscles and Mike’s lack of reaction that stop her from jumping at every shadow.

“Mike?” she asks when the silence and her own thoughts get to be too much.

“Hm?”

“I think … I saw something.”

He turns, eyes going every which way around her. “Where?”

“No. I mean … before. In the woods.”

“Oh.” He goes creepily still and she shifts a little just to make up for it. She regrets it pretty fast and is left wincing.

“The- the _whatever_ that grabbed me, I got a look at it when it dropped me in the snow - and then again when it was-” she can feel her skin tearing all over again- “when it brought me into the mines.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty freaky looking.”

“No. I mean, yeah, they are, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It had …” She realizes she’s gripping her right arm, just under her shoulder. She’s not strong enough for it to hurt, but she thinks it should. “It had a tattoo,” she says softly, staring at her arm instead of at Mike. “It had Hannah’s tattoo.”

He doesn’t say anything for a _really_ long time. “Jess, that’s…”

“I know what I saw, Mike. I may have like _twelve_ concussions and be seeing freaky monster things, but I know it’s all real.” Breathing is starting to hurt for a whole different reason than her ribs. “Do you think- That has to be her, right? So something happened to her? Something … _made her_ into that _thing_?”

“That’s crazy.”

“Well what about tonight isn’t? We’re supposed to be having sex at the love cabin and instead we’re wandering around the mines, hiding from freaky monsters, _one of which_ is probably our friend we thought was dead and- and it’s my fault.” She feels like there are knives in her throat. She can’t look at Mike’s face, so instead she focuses on his hands. They’re gripping the barrel of the rifle, tight and tense like he doesn’t know what to do.

“Jess,” he begins gently.

“The prank was my idea. Hannah was my friend and it’s my fault she became some sort of gross monster.” She looks down at her body, at all the cuts and bruises she can see and the deeper ones she can feel beneath her clothes. “I think she brought me here to make me pay.”

“It’s not your fault.”

She manages a weak laugh that makes the back of her skull hurt. “Yeah, it is.”

Mike steps closer, so close the toes of his boots nearly touch hers. He waits until she looks at him. “It’s not. Yeah, we - you and me, we - were terrible, but we didn’t kill Hannah and we didn’t turn her into that thing, either.”

“But-”

“No. No buts. Did you want her dead? When you thought up that fucking prank, did you want her to _die_? Were you planning on her freaking out and running into a _snowstorm_?”

“No,” she says, cringing back from his tone. They always play pranks at these parties and she was hoping for a little laugh. Hannah’s giant crush had become a kind of joke whenever she wasn’t around. And part of Jess - a really, really small part - was hoping it might help Hannah get the picture already and move _on_. Like, come on, Hannah could’ve gotten almost any guy she wanted but she had to go after _Mike_? She was wasting the best years of her life - the last years, it turns out - pining over him, it was pathetic.

But yeah, mostly it was the cruel and horrible joke thing.

Jess has had more than one nightmare since she and Mike started dating where it was her in Hannah’s place, only she didn’t run outside and disappear forever. She just stood there, taking off all of her clothes while the others - Mike included - all laughed.

“Good,” Mike says, cutting through her shame. “Because neither did I or anybody else in that room. You fucked up, but you didn’t kill her, Jess, and you didn’t turn her into a monster. Okay?”

She’s spent a year trying to ignore what happened and her part in it. She never talked to anyone about the prank being her idea, even though everyone knew. Even that counselor the school made her go too, the one who promised anything said in their sessions was strictly confidential, she never told her. She just kept moving forward, burying the past as far behind her as she could.

She never actually stopped to think that maybe everything that happened wasn’t completely her fault.

“Okay,” she says, shock and a little lingering disbelief making her voice weak.

“Okay,” Mike says again. “So can we go now?”

She nods and follows along when he starts moving again.

Everything still hurts, she still feels like once they get outside the wind’s gonna knock her right over, but she feels better too. It’s cheesy, but she feels like a weight’s been lifted. And just in time too, she’s in no shape to be carrying _anything_ , even emotional baggage.

She’s right about the wind. She can feel the colder air long before they see the light and it’s all she can do to put one foot in front of the other. The lantern strains against her fingers, its flame flickering worse than ever.

“Almost there, Jess.” Mike stands up by the opening, a big ol’ smile on his face while he keeps an eye out behind her. “You’re almost there.”

She wants to ask for his help, even though he’s the one protecting both of them, but that’s too much work when she’s already having a tough enough time moving, so she settles for letting the wind press her against the rocky mountainside once she’s through the opening.

“Made it,” she says proudly, turning her head in his direction.

He smiles back, still inside the cave, and something in her heart flutters. Not in the good way it usually does around Mike.

“Mike,” she asks.

“You can see the lodge from here. Just keep heading for the sunrise and you can’t miss it.”

“Mike.”

“ _Jess_ ,” he teases. “Come on, you’re not Emily-smart but you’re still smart. When have I ever been able to keep my hands off you?”

Her breath’s coming too fast again and she wills it to slow down. She’s seen some seriously freaky shit tonight, but she thinks this might be the freakiest. “You’re-” She swallows. “You’re not a-”

He scoffs rudely. “I’m not a ghost. As flattering as it might be that you think your boyfriend of eight weeks would come back from the dead just to help guide you to safety, this is a little more awesome than that.” He leans closer, his face disappearing where the early sunlight touches it.

The pain in her head has to at _least_ triple. “I’m hallucinating.” That’s pretty much the opposite of _awesome_.

The figment of her imagination smiles, apparently Jess’ brain thinks her insanity is funny. “You saved yourself.”

He’s right. _Sh_ _e’s_ right. Whatever. She may have had to hallucinate to get out of there, but it was still her doing all the work. That’s not nothing.

Mike-or-whatever tips his head towards the silhouette of the lodge in the distance. “Now do it again - and get that hug we both know you want so fucking bad.”

He steps forward, fading into the light. She watches the snowflakes float through the space he just stood, and then turns to face the sunrise.

 


End file.
